Lose Arm Flab With Your Thoughts, Part 3

By now you should be an arm-toning motivational expert if you’ve read my last two articles. And after reading this last article in the series, you’ll become a flabby arms motivational wizard.

I honestly believe that the biggest factor preventing women from reaching their goals is an inability to maintain high levels of motivation for prolonged periods of time. I reached this conclusion the hard way. I realized that at certain points during my flabby arms epic, I found it hard to stay motivated even when getting great results.

The culprit? Thought processes gone wrong. Terribly wrong.

So now I am going to uncover the last 3 “cognitive distortions” you must avoid so that your thoughts don’t go terribly wrong:

1. Disqualifying the positive. This distortion is the most interesting because it involves “reverse alchemy.” In other words, you turn a positive event into a negative one. Let’s say, for example, that you train really hard one week and people around you start giving you compliments about your arms. Instead of giving yourself credit for the hard work, you assume that these people are just trying to be nice and don’t really see any changes in your arms! You turn a positive (credit for your hard work) into a negative (people giving fake compliments). Don’t ever disqualify any degree of achievement you obtain. Always give yourself a lot of credit for any arm-toning success!

2. Fortune teller error. Stay away from this distortion like the plague. It causes inaction—your worst enemy. With this one, you automatically assume a negative outcome is bound to happen without even trying first. For example, a friend of yours who got rid of flabby arms comes up to you and shows you a state-of-the-art arm workout. Instead of giving the workout a go, you assume that it will never work for you even thought it worked for her. The result? You don’t act on this new information. You look into the future, just like a fortune teller, an envision a negative outcome.

3. Emotional reasoning. Another bad boy because it also causes inaction. This distortion leads you to believe that your emotions are a reflection of reality. For instance, let’s say you wake up one day feeling horrible. The reasons for feeling horrible could be many: lack of sleep, sickness, marital strain, work related stress, etc. And instead of isolating the horrible feeling to its cause, you assume its related to getting rid of flabby arms. In other words, you associate your negative emotions with getting rid of arm flab even though the two may not be related at all. If you keep on doing this, you’ll eventually perceive the process as being extremely negative. But in reality, it’s not negative, its positive.

Congratulations, you have now graduated from the institution of motivational wizardry with highest honors! There is no doubt in my mind that if you avoid the cognitive distortions I’ve revealed, your motivation will be steady and strong. Gone will be the days of falling of the bandwagon. Arm-toning success is right around the corner.